HDD Dead, Have M.2 SSD but cannot access advanced BIOS and computer does not recognize M.2

I have the R5-571TG-78G8. 12 GB DDR3 RAM, i7 chip, NVidia Graphics card--really nice machine. My Seagate factory HDD failed and is no longer viable. I cannot get past the "Performing System Recovery" screen. I noticed the mobo has an M.2 slot so I bought a WD Black 256GB Performance SSD - 8 Gb/s M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive – WDS256G1X0C to use instead since I was only using about 100 GB of storage on the HDD. I bought a flash drive to use as a boot, however when I get into the bios, I cannot even see the PCIe/M.2 drive anywhere. It is not in the boot order list and there are no advanced bios options anywhere. Since I cannot access the advanced bios settings to see if I can "turn on/activate" the M.2/PCIe port (most forums agree that it is "Port 9"), I cannot format the SSD in order to reinstall Windows (I have a copy of Windows 7 that I am going to use). This pretty much makes my machine a brick. Acer needs to allow me to access their "super secret" advanced bios settings. My machine is no longer under warranty so what is it going to hurt? I'm more of an intermediate when it comes to computers and I am smart enough not to get too deep into something if I don't know what I'm doing. I paid a lot of money for this laptop a year and a half ago and have never banged or bumped it into anything to cause this HDD to fail. I just want my machine to work as it was too expensive to be a brick. If not, Acer needs to send me a new HDD to replace the faulty one they sold me.

If someone can help me out, I would be truly grateful. I cannot mod my bios as this is too complicated for someone like me. Keep in mind, I have no access to programs or any way to install/use any programs/apps from my laptop. The only thing I have managed to do is to use my flash drive as a boot using Linux Ubuntu but the functionality is limited since I am use the "live" version and cannot install the full version since I cannot get the machine to recognize the M.2/SSD. I have a desktop that works and can move programs/apps onto the flash drive to use on the laptop but it needs to be usable either from linux ubuntu or from the bios.

Thanks in advance for any advice here!

Accepted answers

StevoLA

So guys--I should've been more thorough in checking the compatibility of my Acer laptop with the M.2 SSD I was purchasing. Turns out my laptop is not compatible with NVMe PCIe M.2 drives, which is what I had (see here: http://a.co/0QmeziK). You have to purchase an mSATA (SATAIII) M.2 drive so I went with this one: http://a.co/8dyUaZM. Once I hooked up the Samsung 860 EVO, BIOS/UEFI picked it up right away. I had a little trouble getting my USB bootable Windows 10 install to work, but I figured out that was because I didn't choose the correct settings the first couple of times in Rufus so it kept formatting the file system on my flash drive as NTFS. Once I finally got the right settings in Rufus and it formatted as FAT32, Windows install started right up and formatted/partitioned the SSD automatically. Once I was able to install/update all of my drivers the laptop boots and runs incredibly fast and now I can use the SSD as my OS/bootable drive and buy a 1TB laptop HDD or hybrid SSHD to install my games/other software. Really excited that I was able to get this to work. I really appreciate everyone trying to help and I definitely learned a lot through the troubleshooting and installation process. Thanks, guys!

All comments

kuduku

same issue i cannot see my Samsung NVMe ssd after installing in M.2 port . In BIOS HDD 0 is showing not installed .
Where is this hidden advanced settings ?
Acer Swift 3 Ryzen 5 SF315-41-R9S1
Part Number - UN.GV7SI.001

padgett

Even the live version of Ubuntu should be able to do a sudo fdisk -l What is the result ? There seems to be a lot of problems with NVMe drives.

StevoLA

Thanks for the suggestion, padgett. I'm not familiar at all with the language of Linux (always had Windows PCs). Here is the result: The top drive looks like my old HDD (which isn't even plugged in to the mobo anymore) and the bottom drive is my usb flash drive. I still cannot see the NVMe PCIe drive. Any thoughts on where to go now? I need to get my mobo to recognize that: 1) There is an M.2 PCIe port. 2) There is a SSD plugged into it. I have double checked that the M.2 port is powered and it is soldered and powered directly by the mobo. It does not have anywhere to plug in another SATA or power cable. Let me know if I'm doing something wrong here. Thanks again for the suggestion. Any help is appreciated.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/ij/f43afo0jw23e.jpg

padgett

Do you have a desktop for testing ? My thought is to find out if the SSD is bad but would require something like this: https://www.amazon.com/QNINE-Adapter-Controller-Expansion-Profile/dp/B077YHFJZM/ - note most of what came up when I searched was "NOT usable with NVMe". What it looks like is that NVMe is entirely different from SATA and is designed to interface with a PCIe bus (on desktop motherboards, rare elsewhere).

BTW this is what an R3 looks like with a 128GB SD card (119,3), a 250GB SSD (232.9) with Windows components and split into C (117GB) and D (115.3GB) drives, and booting from a 4GB boot flash (3.7). (Advertising GB are larger than real GB)

ps a loop designation is an artificial device mainly used to access a local .iso file.

kuduku

StevoLA said:

Thanks for the suggestion, padgett. I'm not familiar at all with the language of Linux (always had Windows PCs). Here is the result: The top drive looks like my old HDD (which isn't even plugged in to the mobo anymore) and the bottom drive is my usb flash drive. I still cannot see the NVMe PCIe drive. Any thoughts on where to go now? I need to get my mobo to recognize that: 1) There is an M.2 PCIe port. 2) There is a SSD plugged into it. I have double checked that the M.2 port is powered and it is soldered and powered directly by the mobo. It does not have anywhere to plug in another SATA or power cable. Let me know if I'm doing something wrong here. Thanks again for the suggestion. Any help is appreciated.

Were you able to make it work ? Was the SSD recognized ?

StevoLA

So guys--I should've been more thorough in checking the compatibility of my Acer laptop with the M.2 SSD I was purchasing. Turns out my laptop is not compatible with NVMe PCIe M.2 drives, which is what I had (see here: http://a.co/0QmeziK). You have to purchase an mSATA (SATAIII) M.2 drive so I went with this one: http://a.co/8dyUaZM. Once I hooked up the Samsung 860 EVO, BIOS/UEFI picked it up right away. I had a little trouble getting my USB bootable Windows 10 install to work, but I figured out that was because I didn't choose the correct settings the first couple of times in Rufus so it kept formatting the file system on my flash drive as NTFS. Once I finally got the right settings in Rufus and it formatted as FAT32, Windows install started right up and formatted/partitioned the SSD automatically. Once I was able to install/update all of my drivers the laptop boots and runs incredibly fast and now I can use the SSD as my OS/bootable drive and buy a 1TB laptop HDD or hybrid SSHD to install my games/other software. Really excited that I was able to get this to work. I really appreciate everyone trying to help and I definitely learned a lot through the troubleshooting and installation process. Thanks, guys!

StevoLA

kuduku said:

same issue i cannot see my Samsung NVMe ssd after installing in M.2 port . In BIOS HDD 0 is showing not installed .
Where is this hidden advanced settings ?
Acer Swift 3 Ryzen 5 SF315-41-R9S1
Part Number - UN.GV7SI.001

Kuduku-you may want to try to switch to an mSATA SSD like the one I bought (see my latest post on the thread above) and give it a shot. Not sure if you updated your BIOS firmware yet but that could also do the trick as some old versions of BIOS firmware may not be compatible with M.2 PCIe NVMe. Make 100% sure that your M.2 port on your machine is NVMe PCIe compatible though. If not, then you will just have to go with the mSATA SSD. Let me know what you find out! I hope this helps and if I am coming across like a jerk, it's only because I'm really excited that I fixed my issue and really want to help others if they have this same problem. Again, I hope this helps!

padgett

Key is that the Samsung 850 series works and the 9xx does not in many laptops. I have an 850 in my R3 and have had no problems.

kuduku

StevoLA said:

kuduku said:

same issue i cannot see my Samsung NVMe ssd after installing in M.2 port . In BIOS HDD 0 is showing not installed .
Where is this hidden advanced settings ?
Acer Swift 3 Ryzen 5 SF315-41-R9S1
Part Number - UN.GV7SI.001

Kuduku-you may want to try to switch to an mSATA SSD like the one I bought (see my latest post on the thread above) and give it a shot. Not sure if you updated your BIOS firmware yet but that could also do the trick as some old versions of BIOS firmware may not be compatible with M.2 PCIe NVMe. Make 100% sure that your M.2 port on your machine is NVMe PCIe compatible though. If not, then you will just have to go with the mSATA SSD. Let me know what you find out! I hope this helps and if I am coming across like a jerk, it's only because I'm really excited that I fixed my issue and really want to help others if they have this same problem. Again, I hope this helps!

I dont have a mSata port , thats for sure .
It has an M.2 , now thats NVMe or SATA is the question .
i have got many helpful answers in my thread and have purchased a slower NVMe drive which might be compatible with my Laptop . It has an Acer part number so should work

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